From TV to Internet to Health Care Reform and Back Again

About Jacki

Jacki Schechner started her on-air TV career as a sports reporter in Hagerstown, MD where she was a one-woman-band – shooting, writing, editing, and working the teleprompter with her foot.

In 1999, she moved to NYC and joined Pseudo.com – the world’s first interactive TV network. There Jacki hosted 3-5 hours of live programming daily, interviewing everyone from Arianna Huffington and Dick Morris to the Coyote Ugly bartenders and The Baroness – NYC’s queen of latex. After Pseudo fell victim to the dot-com bust, Jacki stayed in NYC, hosting a digital culture and technology series for Discovery International, a pilot for the History Channel, and a pilot for the Travel Channel.

In 2004, Jacki took a job with Kuma and made news reports for their reality-based video games. A year later, CNN called, and on Valentine’s Day 2005, she moved to Washington, DC to become the first-ever Internet Correspondent in cable news. In her almost three years with CNN, Jacki appeared on television multiple times every day, winning a Peabody Award for her participation in the network’s coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and an Emmy Award for being part of CNN’s midterm election coverage in 2006.

In 2007, Jacki started this site, wrote a bit for AMERICAblog, and decided it was time to fight for something she strongly believed in. In June 2008, she became the National Communications Director for Health Care for America Now – the nation’s largest health care reform campaign. In that capacity, Jacki spearheaded communications for a coalition of more than 1100 organizations with field operations in 46 states.

After health reform passed in March 2010, Jacki moved to Miami – her hometown – and set up shop as a consultant, specializing in all aspects of communications, including social media best practices and optimization, press relations, strategic messaging and branding, advertising, writing, editing, and presentation training. She also served as the Director of Digital Strategy for Fitzgibbon Media.

Al Gore’s Current TV brought Jacki back to broadcast media in March 2012. She produced and delivered live political news updates for The Bill Press Show and Talking Liberally with Stephanie Miller weekday mornings from 6am to 1pm ET and also contributed to political coverage elsewhere on the network. Al Jazeera bought Current in January 2013 and replaced it with Al Jazeera America programming mid-August.

Jacki currently lives in Los Angeles where she continues to contribute weekly to The Stephanie Miller Show, still syndicated nationwide, heard on SiriusXM, and watched on Free Speech TV. She’s active online, working to demystify the Affordable Care Act, debunk reform-related rumors and misinformation, and keep a close, watchful eye on the health insurance industry.